This sermon was offered at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Rochester, MN. The Gospel reading was John 2:1-11, the first miracle recorded in this Gospel...the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast.
The
wedding invitation: a significant piece
of correspondence that in this time of evites and Facebook events, still
arrives by delivery of the postal service.
It embodies the unique personality of the couple, the color scheme for
the event … and the joy of the upcoming celebration seems to burst from the
envelope when it is opened.
Couples
and their parents, over the years, have discovered trendy ways to announce the
nuptials. Outliving the trends, the
etiquette of Emily Post has survived. In every invitation one will find: the names of the couple (and sometimes their
parents); the date, time and location of the wedding and the reception; the
location of the gift registries, the location of accommodations, and probably
one of the most important pieces: the
RSVP card, with a self-addressed, postage-paid envelope.
According
to Wikipedia, the definition of RSVP is this: [quote]
‘In the context of social invitations, RSVP is a request for a response from the invited person or people. It is an initialism derived from the French phrase [pardon my pronunciation] Répondez s'il vous plaît, literally "Reply if you please" or "Please reply".’ [End quote]
‘In the context of social invitations, RSVP is a request for a response from the invited person or people. It is an initialism derived from the French phrase [pardon my pronunciation] Répondez s'il vous plaît, literally "Reply if you please" or "Please reply".’ [End quote]
There are practical reasons
for the request, not the least of which is to know how many people will attend
the meal. A wedding would be the last
place anyone would want to run out of food or beverages.
A wedding feast is not like
most other parties, especially in pot-luck and open-house communities. This is an event where families celebrate
their joy, where they welcome beloved (or at least tolerated) family and
friends to bless the union of two people.
It is a place where the menu served is a reflection of the host. Buffet style?
Table service? Linen or paper table
cloths and napkins? Cash or open
bar? It’s about personalities and
budgets, about context and tradition, about hospitality and celebration.
In the end, the price tag of the event should not matter as
much as the commitment the guests make to the couple as they support the
marriage through celebrating the wedding.
Nearly 23 years ago my
husband and I went to Poland to attend a wedding. A college friend met a woman
there when he was in the Peace Corps. It was a new cultural experience. A 4:00 wedding was held in the Catholic
church after an earlier civil ceremony.
The reception began with a multi-course sit-down meal of familiar and
unfamiliar foods. When the band began
playing the tables were cleared. About
an hour later, more food from one of the courses was served. A variety of cakes appeared at some
point. More food was brought out every
hour on the hour. I had never experienced this kind of a wedding reception
before!
I don’t think any food or
vodka ever ran out that night … at least not before we left at about 4:00 in
the morning. The reception continued
until the first bells for Sunday Mass began ringing. For over 12 hours food and beverages flowed
and music played to celebrate the marriage of our friends.
I wonder if this kind of a
party was similar to the one we heard about in today’s Gospel. A family invites many people to celebrate a
marriage, provides music, food and beverages, and people laugh and dance; eat
and drink as long as they are able. It
is a symbol of abundance: of wealth and joy, of hospitality and love. The couple and all who are with them are
celebrated and blessed.
I imagine Jesus leaning
against an outer wall, resting and talking with his disciples when his mother
comes to him to tell him the wine has run out. She is anxious and flushed and
worried for the hosts because the celebration was to continue for at least one
more day.
We don’t know why the wine
ran out. It just ran out too soon. How embarrassing! Can you imagine? Maybe the grape crop had failed and the wine
supply was limited. Maybe the guests
were very, very thirsty. Maybe more
people showed up than were expected.
Maybe it was simply poor planning.
It doesn’t really matter why. To
run out of wine at such an event would be social suicide. And Mary knew it. We don’t know why she was aware or why she
cared so much, but she did not want the hosts of the wedding to be embarrassed
by the lack of wine.
So she tells Jesus about the
deficit. She tells him that the wine has
run dry. She expects that he will be
able to do something to protect the household from embarrassment, but he
doesn’t seem to care. He basically asks
her “what do you want me to do about it?”
While he doesn’t think it is the time or place for his divinity to be
revealed, his mother does.
She knows that Jesus is
capable of changing the situation because, though he doesn’t believe it is the
right time, she knows that this is where Jesus would show the abundance of
God’s grace to an unsuspecting crowd.
What better place to share the joy of the Lord? What better place to shower blessings upon
God’s people? What better place to show
God’s grace?
Mary tells the servants to
do what Jesus instructs them to do.
There are so many ways to
picture her face, aren’t there? Mary’s
face could have expressed anger or humility or humor or impatience, but
whatever she was expressing, it was enough to get Jesus to ask for not one
stone water jar to be filled with water, but six.
Six jars that each holds
twenty or thirty gallons. That’s nearly
800 bottles of wine. And not bitter or
sour wine, but the best of the best wine.
Enough wine to continue the celebration for days.
Wine is a big deal in the
wedding feast.
It is a sign of
abundance. It is used to offer
blessings. It is a way of expressing
hospitality. It brings joy and
gladness. To run out is to imply an end
to all these things. But Jesus did not
simply create enough wine … He created an overflowing amount of wine.
Overflowing blessings.
Overflowing hospitality.
Overflowing joy.
Overflowing gladness.
Overflowing grace.
It was an overflowing amount of the best of these
things. It was an offering of the best
God has to offer to those who were invited to the wedding feast in Cana on that
day.
But it is more than that.
In this story, Jesus
revealed God’s presence in him and it is through this experience the disciples
come to believe in Jesus. It is our
invitation to believe that Jesus is God’s son and that the gift of Jesus-made-flesh
is the overflowing gift of grace-filled abundance God has to offer each of us,
too.
And so I invite all of you
to join me in a celebration. It is a thanksgiving
meal we call the Eucharist. Through this
celebration I hope you will find abundance.
I hope you will experience hospitality.
I hope you will know joy. I hope
you will be blessed. I hope you will
find the grace offered through the sacrifice of Jesus, who, in this first
miracle taught us that God’s love, God’s grace is abundant and very, very
good.
Oh. You don’t need to RSVP. With God, there’s always more than enough for
everyone.
Amen.